Hik-Connect Playback quality issues on my iPad?

[AlanW]

I have an Acusense system with 4 cameras of 8MP model DS-2CD2387G2-LU 2.8mm, and 2 cameras 5MP model IPC-T259H 2.8mm, and an NVR model DS-7608NXI-I2/8P/S with 6 TB disk.

System is set up from a laptop and from a browser using the IP address.

All other actions are done on an ipad.


All cameras display clearly in HD from about 6pm until about 7am next day.

I will ignore the 2 x 5MP cameras (no. 2 & 3) as they seem to be OK.
Likewise, whatever we do, the Kitchen camera which is number 6 (8MP camera) always displays in Live and playback in HD so no problem.


During the day select live view for all cameras, all 8MP cameras are displaying blurry screens, presumably in “Basic”?

Checking Notifications:

• Front camera no.1 won't play, it just displays like a still photograph.
• Drive camera no.5 seems OK today but isn't always.
• Back of garage no.4 starts OK then stops, then runs several seconds later, then stops and displays "Device decoding timed out. Check the device network connection". Select live view from this notification, searches, then gives same error message.

Selected playback for 11am yesterday:

• Drive (cam 5) & Kitchen (cam 6) playing.
• Front (cam 1) and Back of garage (cam 4) then displays "90%+" in centre of screens then stops and gives “Device decoding time out message”.

At about 1pm today selected all live view:

• All Ok while showing in 4 quarters of the screen.
• When select them to full screen, the Kitchen plays in HD but all others will only play in Basic.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[AlanW]

I have an Acusense system with 4 cameras of 8MP model DS-2CD2387G2-LU 2.8mm, and 2 cameras 5MP model IPC-T259H 2.8mm, and an NVR model DS-7608NXI-I2/8P/S with 6 TB disk.

System is set up from a laptop and from a browser using the IP address.

All other actions are done on an ipad.


All cameras display clearly in HD from about 6pm until about 7am next day.

I will ignore the 2 x 5MP cameras (no. 2 & 3) as they seem to be OK.
Likewise, whatever we do, the Kitchen camera which is number 6 (8MP camera) always displays in Live and playback in HD so no problem.


During the day select live view for all cameras, all 8MP cameras are displaying blurry screens, presumably in “Basic”?

Checking Notifications:

• Front camera no.1 won't play, it just displays like a still photograph.
• Drive camera no.5 seems OK today but isn't always.
• Back of garage no.4 starts OK then stops, then runs several seconds later, then stops and displays "Device decoding timed out. Check the device network connection". Select live view from this notification, searches, then gives same error message.

Selected playback for 11am yesterday:

• Drive (cam 5) & Kitchen (cam 6) playing.
• Front (cam 1) and Back of garage (cam 4) then displays "90%+" in centre of screens then stops and gives “Device decoding time out message”.

At about 1pm today selected all live view:

• All Ok while showing in 4 quarters of the screen.
• When select them to full screen, the Kitchen plays in HD but all others will only play in Basic.

Any help would be appreciated.

Looks like I’m replying to myself. It looks like I’ve solved my issue so I thought I would share it.
Firstly, because the front camera is the important one, I swapped the cables in the NVR between camera 6 (the kitchen) and camera 1 (Front).
As only 3 out of the 6 cameras would allow me to set up “line crossing” I reduced the resolution down until they let me set them up.
By doing this it cured the problem whereby the live views were not displaying in HD.

I am happy with this now, but I would be most grateful if someone can tell me what I have to do to be able to increase the resolution?

 

[Phil]

Is this a new system?
e.g. has all worked well before?

 

[AlanW]

Is this a new system?
e.g. has all worked well before?

Hi Phil, I had it upgraded about a year ago from DS 7208 to DS 7608 and added 6 colour cameras. We thought it was great because it was almost like daylight on the cameras at night. It was about 6 months ago that we really noticed that the quality during the day was poor. Due to other reasons as well we upgraded our internet to 1000GB hoping it would help. That's it.

 

[JB1970]

I have an Acusense system with 4 cameras of 8MP model DS-2CD2387G2-LU 2.8mm, and 2 cameras 5MP model IPC-T259H 2.8mm, and an NVR model DS-7608NXI-I2/8P/S with 6 TB disk.

System is set up from a laptop and from a browser using the IP address.

All other actions are done on an ipad.


All cameras display clearly in HD from about 6pm until about 7am next day.

I will ignore the 2 x 5MP cameras (no. 2 & 3) as they seem to be OK.
Likewise, whatever we do, the Kitchen camera which is number 6 (8MP camera) always displays in Live and playback in HD so no problem.


During the day select live view for all cameras, all 8MP cameras are displaying blurry screens, presumably in “Basic”?

Checking Notifications:

• Front camera no.1 won't play, it just displays like a still photograph.
• Drive camera no.5 seems OK today but isn't always.
• Back of garage no.4 starts OK then stops, then runs several seconds later, then stops and displays "Device decoding timed out. Check the device network connection". Select live view from this notification, searches, then gives same error message.

Selected playback for 11am yesterday:

• Drive (cam 5) & Kitchen (cam 6) playing.
• Front (cam 1) and Back of garage (cam 4) then displays "90%+" in centre of screens then stops and gives “Device decoding time out message”.

At about 1pm today selected all live view:

• All Ok while showing in 4 quarters of the screen.
• When select them to full screen, the Kitchen plays in HD but all others will only play in Basic.

Any help would be appreciated.

On the NVR go to Settings > Network > Advanced > Platform Access. Disable 'Adaptive Bitrate Streaming'. It may be called 'Sub stream rate adaption'

 

[AlanW]

On the NVR go to Settings > Network > Advanced > Platform Access. Disable 'Adaptive Bitrate Streaming'. It may be called 'Sub stream rate adaption'

Hello Guru, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I can't follow your menu. I am using my browser with an Acusense system with DS-7608.
The closest I can get to yours is "Configuration>Network>Advanced Configuration" but I can't find any ref to "Adaptive Bitrate Streaming" or "Sub stream rate adaption". I have also tried to follow it on iVMS-4200 without success.

 

[JB1970]

Hello Guru, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I can't follow your menu. I am using my browser with an Acusense system with DS-7608.
The closest I can get to yours is "Configuration>Network>Advanced Configuration" but I can't find any ref to "Adaptive Bitrate Streaming" or "Sub stream rate adaption". I have also tried to follow it on iVMS-4200 without success.

Within 'Advanced Configuration'. You should see the page or tab for Platform Access (where Hik-Connect is set up). Depending on the version of firmware you're on, that page may have the option I detailed (it can also be called 'Low Bitrate Mode'). That is something that can mess up the image when watching in 'Basic' as it reprograms the sub stream settings, dropping the bit rate too low.

Failing that, for any image issues you'd need to screenshot the video parameters page for each camera for both main stream and sub stream as that would indicate if everything is set up well.

 

[AlanW]

Within 'Advanced Configuration'. You should see the page or tab for Platform Access (where Hik-Connect is set up). Depending on the version of firmware you're on, that page may have the option I detailed (it can also be called 'Low Bitrate Mode'). That is something that can mess up the image when watching in 'Basic' as it reprograms the sub stream settings, dropping the bit rate too low.

Failing that, for any image issues you'd need to screenshot the video parameters page for each camera for both main stream and sub stream as that would indicate if everything is set up well.

Hi Guru, I have attached my Platform Access screenshot, and my screenshots for both Main screen & Sub screens. This shows the Kitchen, but all the other cameras are the same set up. Is there anything obvious?

 

[JB1970]

Hi Guru, I have attached my Platform Access screenshot, and my screenshots for both Main screen & Sub screens. This shows the Kitchen, but all the other cameras are the same set up. Is there anything obvious?

There's nothing standout terrible in the settings but a couple of observations:

Hik-Connect - You have Stream Encryption enabled. There's nothing wrong with that, but it will add 'overhead'. The images being encrypted and needing to be decrypted on your device requires additional processing, so that may cause issues from time to time. Many will swear it's essential; personally I never use it. If someone wants to intercept my camera stream and keep an eye on my car for me I'm fine with that (though I consider it unlikely)

Main Stream Settings - A couple of points:

• You mention in your earlier post that this is a 2387 (8MP ColorVu turret). The main stream settings show that it's set to 2680 x 1520, which is 4 megapixels. So either you have an 8MP camera set to 4MP or you've a 4MP model. (8MP would be 3840 x 2160)
• Secondly you have H265+ turned on which I always advise against. It uses higher compression and while it saves on disk space due to its bit rate management, it takes more processing to encode/decode. It's also been known to cause unwanted artefacts/glitches in images. I would switch off the H265 + so it's standard H265. Match the I Frame to whatever frame rate you choose (the frame rate will then dictate what the max bitrate [currently greyed out in plus] needs to be)
• You probably don't need 25FPS and sometimes it can be better to use a lower frames per second as then each frame has a higher portion of bitrate available. That said I have most of my cameras at 25FPS....
• Whatever the Main Stream (normal) is set to, it's important to ensure that Main Stream (event) matches. It usually happens automatically on recent firmware, but if it's different it can cause a mess with motion detection etc, as the bitrate and compression level can be switching whenever there's movement.

Sub Stream Settings - They're fine but I'd usually just use 12FPS. Sub stream is really for mobile phone use so speed of connection and fluidity is more important than quality when the mobile network may be saturated.

You might want to confirm exactly what models you have. Is the Kitchen 4 or 8 megapixel, is it G3 platform or G5 platform (newer C revision) model. The G5 versions can have the sub stream set to 720P. Additionally I'd be checking the firmware version of each camera (and the NVR) and installing the latest versions (ignore any dialogue that says they're up to date - that mechanism does not work).

You can access the cameras directly using Virtual Host (if you haven't already switch on in Network > Advanced > Other). That will provide links on the System > Camera page. Alternatively you can access camera 1 at http://192.168.0.127:65001 camera 2 at 192.168.0.127:65002 etc. The system settings page of the cameras will tell you the model number, firmware version and importantly firmware version property. Don't mess with the camera settings in the camera itself

 

[AlanW]

There's nothing standout terrible in the settings but a couple of observations:

Hik-Connect - You have Stream Encryption enabled. There's nothing wrong with that, but it will add 'overhead'. The images being encrypted and needing to be decrypted on your device requires additional processing, so that may cause issues from time to time. Many will swear it's essential; personally I never use it. If someone wants to intercept my camera stream and keep an eye on my car for me I'm fine with that (though I consider it unlikely)

Main Stream Settings - A couple of points:

• You mention in your earlier post that this is a 2387 (8MP ColorVu turret). The main stream settings show that it's set to 2680 x 1520, which is 4 megapixels. So either you have an 8MP camera set to 4MP or you've a 4MP model. (8MP would be 3840 x 2160)
• Secondly you have H265+ turned on which I always advise against. It uses higher compression and while it saves on disk space due to its bit rate management, it takes more processing to encode/decode. It's also been known to cause unwanted artefacts/glitches in images. I would switch off the H265 + so it's standard H265. Match the I Frame to whatever frame rate you choose (the frame rate will then dictate what the max bitrate [currently greyed out in plus] needs to be)
• You probably don't need 25FPS and sometimes it can be better to use a lower frames per second as then each frame has a higher portion of bitrate available. That said I have most of my cameras at 25FPS....
• Whatever the Main Stream (normal) is set to, it's important to ensure that Main Stream (event) matches. It usually happens automatically on recent firmware, but if it's different it can cause a mess with motion detection etc, as the bitrate and compression level can be switching whenever there's movement.

Sub Stream Settings - They're fine but I'd usually just use 12FPS. Sub stream is really for mobile phone use so speed of connection and fluidity is more important than quality when the mobile network may be saturated.

You might want to confirm exactly what models you have. Is the Kitchen 4 or 8 megapixel, is it G3 platform or G5 platform (newer C revision) model. The G5 versions can have the sub stream set to 720P. Additionally I'd be checking the firmware version of each camera (and the NVR) and installing the latest versions (ignore any dialogue that says they're up to date - that mechanism does not work).

You can access the cameras directly using Virtual Host (if you haven't already switch on in Network > Advanced > Other). That will provide links on the System > Camera page. Alternatively you can access camera 1 at http://192.168.0.127:65001 camera 2 at 192.168.0.127:65002 etc. The system settings page of the cameras will tell you the model number, firmware version and importantly firmware version property. Don't mess with the camera settings in the camera itself

Thanks, that's brilliant info. I will check over the next few days and let you know. I do know that the 4 cameras are 8MP but I have had to reduce the resolution to get them to work in HD, hence my request for help in order to get them higher again. I have 2 others at the side of the house which are 5MP but not worried about them.

 

[JB1970]

but I have had to reduce the resolution to get them to work in HD

They'll always work in HD but keep in mind that NVRs have a maximum decoding resolution in the specifications. That equates to how many cameras of various resolutions you can display simultaneously on the monitor connected to the NVR and it's similar for playing back in multiscreen.

 

[AlanW]

They'll always work in HD but keep in mind that NVRs have a maximum decoding resolution in the specifications. That equates to how many cameras of various resolutions you can display simultaneously on the monitor connected to the NVR and it's similar for playing back in multiscreen.

Initially the main problem was trying to playback from notifications in the daytime wouldn’t work at all, but they would work at night. If we did a straight playback or live view during the day it would only work in “basic”. If left in “HD” it wouldn’t run. Yet at night after about 6pm until about 7 am they would work in HD no problem.

 

[JB1970]

Initially the main problem was trying to playback from notifications in the daytime wouldn’t work at all, but they would work at night. If we did a straight playback or live view during the day it would only work in “basic”. If left in “HD” it wouldn’t run. Yet at night after about 6pm until about 7 am they would work in HD no problem.

I'd first try switching off encryption under 'Platform access' then disable H265 plus

 

[AlanW]

I'd first try switching off encryption under 'Platform access' then disable H265 plus

Fantastic. Although the system seems to get it's knickers in a twist during the change, I have turned off the encryption and turned H265 to off on the 4 cameras. After ensuring I could update them in "Smart Event" with "Line crossing" if needed in future I increased the resolution to max. All cameras currently displaying in HD. I will try again after about 10'ish in the morning and let you know if they are still working in HD.
Many, many thanks for your help.

 

[AlanW]

I'd first try switching off encryption under 'Platform access' then disable H265 plus

Hi Guru, rechecked cameras this morning and they are all working fantastically in HD. The front one has a slight jump every few seconds but I’m sure that I’ll find this is to do with fps or bitrate which I’ll have a look at later today. Again, many many thanks for your help.
Alan

 

[JB1970]

The front one has a slight jump every few seconds but I’m sure that I’ll find this is to do with fps or bitrate which I’ll have a look at later today.

The jump is the I Frame. With a frame rate of 25 FPS and an I frame of 50 you would see that I frame (full frame refresh) every two seconds. Firstly, on the Main stream, match the I frame to the FPS. Secondly the 6144 bit rate will not be appropriate for standard H265 with 25 FPS if you've set the resolution back to 8MP. If you still have quality at 'Higher' set the bit rate to 10240. With the bit rate too low what you'll see is the image degrading then sharpening again with each I frame. Setting an appropriate maximum bit rate for the frames rate and quality (compression level) will minimise the visual effect of that full frame refresh.

You need to be aware that your NVR has a maximum incoming bandwidth of 80Mbps for all connected cameras. The recorder can accept 8 cameras or 80Mbps total incoming bandwidth, whichever is reached first is the limit. You will have issues with picture freezing, dropped frames, missed recordings if you exceed that limit. That's why I'd recommend using a lower FPS and bit rate for your 8MP cameras. Even with a bit rate limit set the cameras can burst beyond that limit.

 

[AlanW]

The jump is the I Frame. With a frame rate of 25 FPS and an I frame of 50 you would see that I frame (full frame refresh) every two seconds. Firstly, on the Main stream, match the I frame to the FPS. Secondly the 6144 bit rate will not be appropriate for standard H265 with 25 FPS if you've set the resolution back to 8MP. If you still have quality at 'Higher' set the bit rate to 10240. With the bit rate too low what you'll see is the image degrading then sharpening again with each I frame. Setting an appropriate maximum bit rate for the frames rate and quality (compression level) will minimise the visual effect of that full frame refresh.

You need to be aware that your NVR has a maximum incoming bandwidth of 80Mbps for all connected cameras. The recorder can accept 8 cameras or 80Mbps total incoming bandwidth, whichever is reached first is the limit. You will have issues with picture freezing, dropped frames, missed recordings if you exceed that limit. That's why I'd recommend using a lower FPS and bit rate for your 8MP cameras. Even with a bit rate limit set the cameras can burst beyond that limit.

Hi Guru, you are worth your weight in gold. I only amended the front camera bitrate and now have a great display from the front camera. I will play with the other things you have told me. I have got to say that I am now an extremely happy man regarding my CCTV.
Thanks again.
Alan

 

[JB1970]

Hi Guru, you are worth your weight in gold.

Thanks Alan, that's £ 4,081,275 at current market price - that would be some hourly rate

 

[AlanW]

I’m now leaving the country, lol.
Cheers Alan